From civil-war torn China to the Singapore Mutiny, this story traces the dramatic events at the beginning of WWI, as the imperial naval forces of Britain, France, Russia and Japan expelled the German navy from their colonial possessions in the Far East and the Pacific. It follows the desperate rear-guard action fought by the German Cruiser Emden, sinking a score of Allied merchant ships over many weeks and culminating in the Battle of Penang. There, Emden destroyed two Allied warships, Zhemtchug and Mousquet, aided by the lax security in Penang harbor. The British allowed the blame to pass onto the Russians and the French. Two weeks later Emden met her own nemesis, HMAS Sydney. Against this background, the rising power of the mighty Japanese navy and their seizure of Tsing Tao set the scene for the Sino-Japanese war two decades later.